Regulatory bodies should not encourage Paper Mills

Shaukat Ali Jawaid

The Journals Committee of Pakistan Medical & Dental Council has evolved a very transparent effective reliable system for the evaluation and recognition of biomedical journals. The committee consists of senior medical editors and during the last year it has evaluated over ninety journals. Each new journal is reviewed by three members while renewal applications are evaluated by two members of the committee. Furthermore, to eliminate the chances of any bias and ensure that decisions are based on merit, members from other provinces are entrusted the responsibility of evaluation of journals. Once these journals are assessed and evaluated, a detailed report is sent to the respective journals highlighting the deficiencies noted if any and they are also provided help and assistance to improve them. It was in that context that so far the PM&DC has organized two training sessions one at King Edward Medial University in Lahore and the other at Islamabad Medical & Dental College in Islamabad which were attended by a large number of editors and editorial board members of the journals in these cities.

On the contrary, in the past Higher Education Commission had recognized many journals which do not practice any peer review system which is central and extremely important to ensure the quality of manuscripts which are accepted for publication. Hence, it encouraged and promoted many paper mills which publish papers by charging huge amount. During the four years when the PM&DC was replaced by Pakistan Medical Commission, a large number of faculty members got promoted by publishing in thee sub-standard journals just by making payments. Gift authorship, sale and purchase of authorship was very common and this unethical practice flourished due to the encouragement which these journals received from the Higher Education Commission. Some of these journals failed to provide any peer review report when they applied for recognition to the PM&DC, hence their cases remained pending and so far they have failed to get recognition.

PM&DC Journals Committee members has time and again made it clear that they wish to help, encourage and facilitate the journals but there will be no compromise on quality. We need many journals so that the researches get their research work published without having to wait for long period. At present the waiting time with some of the Impact Factor Journals is from eight months to a year, hence it is extremely important that we have many more standard journals. The journals are required to get each manuscript they publish peer reviewed by at least two experts, peer reviewers, ensure that ICMJE guidelines for authorship are strictly followed, Committee on Publication Ethics are followed and each manuscript clearly mentions the Ethics Committee/IRB approval of the studies with reference and date.

The journals are also required to mention time line of publication i.e. when the manuscript was submitted, when it was revised and when it was accepted for publication. Each manuscript should be checked for plagiarism and all these reports should be kept for at least two years and recorded in Open Journal System which these journals are encouraged to use. Journal website is required to have comprehensive information about its ownership, editorial policy, peer review policy, details of processing and publication charges if any and how they manage scientific misconduct. Higher Education Commission guidelines also clearly state that each manuscript must be peer reviewed by two reviewers but it is not implemented and one wonders how the HEC has then recognized these journals.

It is interesting to note that most of these Paper Mills, sub-standard journals who publish papers by charging huge amounts are working under the patronage of some very influential people, in some cases very senior healthcare professionals. Now it is learnt that having failed to get recognition from PM&DC due to their failure to follow the standard procedure, they are trying to use their contacts with those who are close to the power corridors to get some special favours and find some ways and means to influence the members of PM&DC Council for some favourable decision. However, the PM&DC must realize that any such decision will not be accepted by the Journal Committee members.

On the other hand, the HEC is leant to have decided to do away with the most controversial Health Journals Registration System and approved some new guidelines for the recognition of medical journals.1 All those journals which are covered by Web of Sciences by Clarivate known for Impact Factor have been included in W category. All journals included in Scopus database by Elsevier with 25% international authorship will be recognized in X category with some conditions. All other Pakistani journals indexed in Scopus but not fulfilling other conditions have been placed in Y category. The journals will be encouraged to get included in these Index and databases. This is a positive development but the HEC policy is not clear regarding journals covered by PubMed or Medline which is one of the most important indexing service.

HEC administration will be well advised to make these amendments and clearly state in its guidelines that all those journals which are covered by PubMed or Medline will also get automatic recognition and will be placed in W category. It will be much better if a joint committee of HEC and PM&DC is constituted for the evaluation and recognition of biomedical journals which will also overcome many of the problems faced due to different policies adopted by these two regulatory bodies. In any case they should not under any circumstances help, facilitate and encourage Paper Mills which brings bad name to the country.

Reference

1. https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/services/faculty/journals/Documents/HEC%20Journals%20and%20Publication%20Policy%202024.pdf Accessed on October 26, 2024.